ferment

Verb

ferment (third-person singular simple present ferments, present participle fermenting, simple past and past participle fermented)

1. To react, using fermentation; especially to produce alcohol by aging or by allowing yeast to act on sugars; to brew.
   • The cleanup job would turn out to be possibly second only to body-recovery duty in terms of being a job that nobody wanted to get assigned to. Imagine, for a moment, a thick soup of oil, paper, ink, clothing, raw meat and other fresh provisions, and worse, that had all been left to collect together...2020 November 18, Drachinifel, 6:21 from the start, in The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 2 - Up She Rises!, archived from the original on 22 Oct 2022
2. To stir up, agitate, cause unrest or excitement in.
   • Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood.1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC
   • Pleas'd have I wander'd thro' your rough domain; / Trod the pure virgin-ſnows, myſelf as pure; / Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burſt; / Or ſeen the deep fermenting tempeſt brew'd, / In the grim evening ſky.a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 165, lines 10–14

Noun

UK/ˈfɜː.mɛnt/US/ˈfɚ.mɛnt/

ferment (plural ferments)

1. Something, such as a yeast or barm, that causes fermentation.
2. A state of agitation or of turbulent change.
   • Subdue and cool the ferment of desire.a. 1729, John Rogers, The Difficulties of Obtaining Salvation
   • 14 November, 1770, Junius, letter to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield
     The nation is in a ferment.
3. A gentle internal motion of the constituent parts of a fluid; fermentation.
   • A Rage of Pleaſure madden'd every Breaſt, / Down to the loweſt Lees the Ferment ran: [...]1748, James Thomson, “Canto II”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, stanza XXX, page 56
4. A catalyst.